Cherry Pickers

Good morning, my friends. And so it begins. The cherries are ready to become pie filling or else cherries in simple syrup. We'll start with pie filling today. Here's how we harvest cherries at the Three Cats Ranch. 

My job was to sit in the tractor seat and raise the bucket up and down. It can also be tipped up and down, giving Mike a level and flat surface on which to stand. It’s safer than using a ladder by a long shot.

After I while I hopped off the tractor and picked whatever I could reach from the ground. Together, we picked 16 pounds of cherries. It’s enough to do a batch of sweet cherry pie filling and two batches of cherries in simple syrup. There might be enough to do a skillet cherry crisp too. I’ll know when I measure and weigh out what I’ll need for the other projects. There are still cherries on the trees if I don’t have enough.

Before tackling the cherries, I quilted the sashings for Ruth’s Legacy. 

I might have kept going, but instead, I left it needle down in the border. Despite the cherry pie filling efforts, I believe I’ll have time to finish the quilting on this today.

Later in the afternoon, I made my way to the sewing room. There I found Smitty ready to help.

When he saw what I was working on, he called for Sadie to come help. He had bigger mice to fry.

She helped me sew together the fourth of five blocks for this final row. This one has a purple diagonal.

In the process of making the purple block, I was able to cut enough pieces to finish the final pink block as well. If there’s time I’ll sew this together today, and the hard part will be over. After that, I’ll just need to sew these final five blocks into a row, and then sew them to the bottom of the quilt.

To say I’ll be glad to have this finished would be a significant understatement. I might have to shoot off a couple of fireworks just to make the point.

So, it’s another busy day ahead. This will be the first canning of the season. I’m not expecting to do a lot of canning this year, but you never know. Sometimes I get more energetic than I thought possible. As for today, the cherry pie filling will be enough, and then I’m hoping to have plenty of time for sewing. 

And a Happy Fourth of July to everyone who celebrates. Be safe out there, okay?